| What Does Abraham Want? |
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I. So What Do You Want? So, what do you want? What are the hungers that drive you? The desires that are shaping your life? That is the question we have been asking week after week in this sermon series. Last week we saw one of the reasons why. Because our desires are where the battle for our souls is being fought. It is the place where the enemy attacks, only he does it like a skilled fisherman ‘attacks’ fish. By luring us, by enticing us to want what God doesn’t want, and to end up where God doesn’t want us to be, empty, in agony of soul, and dying. So it’s a good thing to study the men and women of God thru the ages and ask ourselves, “What did they want?” So “What did Solomon want?” At first, Solomon wanted wisdom from God; He wanted to know and to do the right thing. God was pleased with this desire; so He gave Solomon what he wanted. The result was a blessed life, a life of incredible wealth and honor and bounty. But then something happened, something tragic. The wisest man in the world started behaving like a simple fool. He started wanting his wives, the pleasure and political protection they provided more than he wanted the wisdom of God. Solomon fell off the wall, and he took the people with him. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put humpty dumpty together again. The Kingdom of Israel was forever divided. Then we asked ourselves, “What did Naomi want?” The answer to that was easy: She wanted what we all want. She wanted a family, a husband who loved her, children who honored her, grandchildren that she could bless in her old age. But unlike Solomon, Naomi didn’t get all that her heart desired. In fact, she lost it all. Husband, children and the hope of a future, all in ten short years. But Naomi’s loss turned out to be more of a gain than Solomon’s wealth. Because, in the midst of her pain, Naomi cried out to God. God heard her cry and gave her more than her heart’s desire. Not just a grandson, not just a daughter-in-law worth more to her than 7 sons, God gave Naomi a place in the history of his salvation of the world. He made her the great, great grandmother of King David, the root from which would spring the Messiah to come. Today we come to Abraham. Abraham’s story, it turns out, is a little bit like Solomon’s story. At least in this sense: Abraham was a man blessed by God, and he lived a blessed life. He was healthy and wealthy and wise. He died at a ripe old age, possessing herds in the 1000’s and paid servants by 100’s. The tribal chiefs all around regarded him as a prince among men. But that’s not the real story of Abraham’s life, is it? If you were to ask him, I don’t think that’s the story he would tell. That’s not the story the Bible tells, at least not the whole story. In fact, Abraham’s story sounds more like Naomi’s than Solomon’s. Because it’s the story of a struggle, the story of a man who struggles with unfulfilled desire all his earthly life. Not just with unfulfilled desire. No. The story of Abraham is the story of a man who struggles with the unfulfilled promises of God. II. The Story of a Struggle As we all know, the story of Abraham begins with a promise. God comes to him while he’s still living in the land of his fathers, East of Canaan. He says, Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation in this land, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Now that’s a promise. God promises this obscure middle aged man four things. He promises to give him a land flowing with milk and honey. God promises to make his descendants who will occupy this land into a great nation. Then He promises to enter into a special relationship with this nation, a relationship of blessing and protection. Finally God promises Abraham the almost unimaginable. Through and your descendants I will bless all the people on planet earth. The life of Abraham as we know it begins in Genesis 12 with the Promise of God. Then, over the next 11 chapters, which cover some 30 or 40 years of his life, from the age of 75 to 110 we hear these promises repeated over and over again. They’re repeated in chapter 13, for example, when God says to Abram (vs 14-17), Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk thru the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you. Then, in chapter 15, the promise is repeated again. God takes Abram outside his tent at night, and says, Look up at the heavens and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. So shall your descendants be. Then in chapter 17 the promise is repeated again. In fact, this time God changes Abraham’s name from Abram, father, to Abraham, great father, father of many. As for me, God says, this is my covenant with you, my promise, and my commitment: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you. Then God commands Abraham and the men of his household to be circumcised, as a sign of their faith in the covenant promise God has made. They are to bear in their flesh the belief that the promise will be fulfilled, that Abraham’s descendants will indeed outnumber the stars in the sky and through those descendants God will bless the world. Of course, Abraham is 99 years old when he is circumcised and Sarah, his wife, is 89. In a few short months, three angels will come to visit the two of them, this aging childless couple. Once again, the angels will tell them, that Sarah will have a son and through her son a nation will come. If you’re counting that’s 8 promises in 10 chapters; 8 promises in 25 years. There’s a reason why the promise of God is repeated over and over again. The reason why is that Abraham and Sarah waited all their lives to receive it. Here Abraham is 99 years old, married to a woman way past childbearing years. Besides, she’s proven herself to be barren. She can’t conceive. Quite frankly, it’s getting hard and harder to believe that God will ever do what He has promised. Don’t think that Abraham and Sarah didn’t struggle. Once, in the middle of a prophetic encounter with God, when God was once again repeating his promise, Abraham, could stand it no longer. He burst out, O Sovereign Lord, how will I know that you will give this land to my descendants?! God responds by revealing Himself in a pillar of fire and prophesying of things to come hundreds of years in the future. But in the end of the day all Abraham is left with is another promise. Sarah became so frustrated that she turned to the only means she had available. In keeping with the custom of that day, she gave Abraham one of her female servants, and said, Go into her. Bear a child to me through her. I call it the horrible Hagar solution because Hagar was Sarah’s handmaid. Ishmael was the son who was born through this attempt to fulfill the promise of God their own way and by their own power. There was a point in Abraham’s life when he cried out to God, Oh God, may Ishmael be live before you. In other words, May this be the son through whom you fulfill your promise. I am too old to have another, and Lord, I am struggling here. Is Abraham beginning to sound like someone we know? Do you ever struggle to believe the promises of God? How about the promise of God to work everything together for good, every trial and tragedy, every dark and difficult turn in the journey? How about the promise to never leave you or forsake you? The promise to bless you if you build your life upon the rock-solid foundation of His words or the promise to give you the desires of your heart if you delight in Him? How about the promise that the humble, the meek, will inherit the earth or the promise that God will hear and answer your prayers in His name? The truth is: most of our lives are lived in the gap between the promises of God and the reality of our present experience. Our present experience falls short of the promise of God! How are we supposed to live in that gap? How are we supposed to keep on believing, keep on hoping, keep on trusting, when the gap never closes? Well, before I attempt an answer, there is one more story to tell. III. The Final Test Genesis chapter 22, verse one: Some time later, the story begins. That is, sometime after the birth of Isaac, the son for whom Abraham and Sarah had waited all those years. The son whose name meant, “laughter” because finally Abraham and Sarah in their old age had something to laugh about. Suddenly, some time later, God calls again: Abraham! Abraham knew that voice. He had heard it many times before. He had learned to trust that voice. I mean, here was Isaac, the long awaited son of promise, playing in Abraham’s presence. God had finally done what He said, miraculously. So Abraham immediately responds, Here I am. God says, verse 2: Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the region of Mount Moriah. So far, so good. Not only does the voice sound familiar, but there are echoes in this command of the very first words Abraham ever heard from God. Go, leave your father’s house go to the land I will show you. But then Abraham heard this. Take your son, your only son whom you love, and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on the mountain I will show you. Stunned silence. I hope you notice the sound of silence in this story. The silence of Abraham toward God. The silence on the three day journey toward mount Moriah. The silence of Abraham and Isaac as they climb and that awful silence as Abraham lifts the knife. The sound of silence in this story is deafening. But oh, what cries must have formed deep within Abraham’s heart. Oh God, what are you doing? What are you asking me to do? How can you do this? How can I do this? This word from God to Abraham is completely unexpected and unimaginable. This was a violation of everything Abraham had come to know about God. Every moral fiber in his being must have revolted at the thought of it! Not only that, but this command contradicted the very promise of God, that through Isaac his descendants would come, through Isaac all the promises would be fulfilled. But early the next morning, verse 3, Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. In other words, he obeyed God immediately. Verse 4: On the third day Abraham looked up and saw Mount Moriah at a distance. Can you imagine that three day journey? Can you imagine the questions, the confusion, the sickness of heart? Can you imagine the soul piercing pain as Abraham lifts his eyes and sees the place of sacrifice? But Abraham walked on. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, he took the knife in his hand and he placed the wood for the fire on the back of his boy knowing full well that in a few short hours Isaac would be bound to that wood in an altogether different way. Together, they began their final ascent up the mountain, in silence. Did you know that Mount Moriah would become the future home of God’s temple? It would become, a thousand years from that day, the very sight where sacrificial lambs would be offered for the sins of Abraham’s descendants. But Abraham didn’t know that. He didn’t know that God the Father was painting a picture for future generations, a picture of the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. No. All Abraham knew is that this made no sense. Finally, Isaac breaks the silence. Abba, Daddy? Yes, my son. I see the fire and the wood, Dad. But where’s the lamb? Do you think, maybe, Isaac knew that something was up? All Abraham could say was, God will provide the lamb. Can we stop here for a moment? What do you think Abraham meant when he said, God will provide the lamb? Certainly those words turned out to be prophetic. God did provide the lamb that day; God will provide the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But did Abraham know, did he have a sense of what would happen, in faith, or was he simply trying to deflect the question and delay the awful moment of revelation? The truth is: we don’t know. I don’t even think Abraham knew. All he knew for sure was that God had commanded him to sacrifice his son. Not until he lifted the knife did the angel of the Lord cry out, Abraham! Stop. Then Abraham looked up, a second time in the story. The text clearly says this: “He looked up.” This time not to see the mountain of sacrifice off in the distance. No, this time he saw the Lamb of God, the lamb God provided. There just may be, in the picture of Abraham lifting his eyes to see the lamb, God’s message for us today. IV. Lift Your Eyes Do you remember that moment in Abraham’s life, years earlier, when God took him for a walk? He took him outside at night and said, Look, look up into the sky. Can you number those stars? That’s how many descendants you will have someday. There was another time, even earlier, when God told Abraham to look up. He was standing in the hills overlooking the Jordan Valley. God said, Look, lift your eyes and look north and south, east and west. As far as your eye can see, that’s the land I will give to you. That’s the story of Abraham’s life. God was always asking him to look up, to lift his eyes, not just his physical eyes, but the eyes of his mind and heart. God was trying to get Abraham to get his eyes off what he, as a man, could do and lift them up to God and see what only God could do. To get his eyes off of the childless present, and lift them to see God’s bountiful future. To get his eyes off the kingdoms of this world and fix them firmly on the kingdom of God. That’s what faith is. It is to fix your eyes on Jesus and His kingdom, on what he has done and what he will do and what we will receive from him when God’s kingdom comes and God’s will is done on earth as it is heaven. The final act in Abraham’s story is the act that makes sense of it all. For only in Jesus, God’s son, God’s only son whom He loves, will all the promises of God be finally fulfilled. And they will be fulfilled. God has taken an oath. God has sacrificed the Lamb So what do you want? It’s another way of asking: What are you setting your sights on? When we are young (and we were all young once) we humans tend to be rather near-sighted. We set our sights on the things just ahead of us. The date next Friday night. Summer vacation. Maybe getting through college and landing that first good job. Meeting your life partner and getting married. Buying a home and starting your family. Getting your kids out of diapers and into school. But as we age (and we all age) we naturally become a bit more far-sighted. We think about saving for college or for retirement. We start worrying about what the world will be like when our grandchildren grow up. We think about the legacy we will leave, the heritage we are building; Sometimes we think about what people will say at our funeral. But Abraham and Sarah’s life was a strange one. They always had to be far-sighted. The longer they lived, the more far-sighted they became. Think about it. Abraham and Sarah had to wait a century before their first baby was born. Then at the age of 110, maybe 115, Abraham was asked to lay it all down and start over again. God’s continual message seemed to be: what I have for you, Abraham, what you most deeply want and need, what will bring you the greatest fulfillment and joy, isn’t just ahead. It’s far away. It’s in another lifetime, another world. Yes, yes, there are blessings here for you, good things in this life. High green hills, lush valleys, rich sunsets. The laughter of children and the love of your wife. But the best, the best is yet to come. The best is not what you can achieve in this life, but what God is preparing for us in the one to come. Not the one to come in heaven but the one that is coming to the earth. The message of God to Abraham, and to us, is the opposite of the title of Joel Osteen’s bestsellers. God does not promise you Your Best Life Now. I don’t know how you feel about that sometimes I don’t know how I feel about it. All I know is that it’s the truth. We live forward. We live for the future. As Christians we live by faith. The longer we live the more we learn to pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The more we learn to cry, in the words of the book of Revelation, Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus, come! What did Abraham want? He wanted to believe God and to receive from God all that God had promised. At first, Abraham wanted it, like we all want it, NOW. But in the end, Abraham learned to trust God. He learned to trust God to provide the Lamb that would take away the sins of the world and bring God’s kingdom to earth. With that in mind, let’s go to our own Mount Moriah and celebrate the Lamb of God who takes away our sins. |
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 March 2011 21:07 |
